Obama Will Reportedly Name Jack Lew to Replace Geithner at Treasury

President Barack Obama plans to name White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew tomorrow as his choice for Treasury secretary, replacing Timothy F. Geithner, a person familiar with the process said.

Lew, 57, who also has served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been offered the Treasury post by Obama, according to the person, who asked for anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Geithner, 51, the only remaining member of Obama’s original economic team, has told White House officials he doesn’t’ want to serve in a second term and intends to leave the job by the end of the month.

Lew’s nomination as Treasury secretary is subject to confirmation by the Senate.
The next Treasury secretary will play a leading role in working with Congress to raise the government’s $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. The U.S. reached the statutory limit on Dec. 31, and the Treasury Department began using extraordinary measures to finance the government. It will exhaust that avenue as early as mid-February, the Congressional Budget Office says.

As a former aide to the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a Massachusetts Democrat, and a two-time director of the Office of Management and Budget, Lew has experience on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. He’s spent most of his career in government, with a brief detour to Wall Street, where he worked as a managing director for Citigroup from July 2006 until joining the administration when Obama first took office.

Let’s see now:

Obama wants to name him.

That means the Republicans will now come out strongly against them, and eventually get Fox News, talk show hosts and allies in the new and old media to passionately argue that Lew is a danger to the Republic.

He certainly has alot of experience and credentials, however his being CEO of Citigroup is a real minus for me. He knew the “shady” practices that were going on, accepted money for the bailout and then walked away with a HUGE bonus. He may be a financial “genius” but I don’t much care for his ethics.